Soldiers moved through the gloom. Shadows flitted into and out of the darkness. It was raining.

They crawled toward the lone building in the woods. A church, fallen into decay. Rotten boards drooped and black lichen covered the once sanctified edifice. Lighting flashed, the thunder rolled languidly across the countryside. They stopped, waiting for the signal.

Seras darted through shadow and shade. Silently creeping toward the church. Four vampires had taken hold there. They had slaughtered dozens of people. Now their lives were over. She reached the edge of the church. A scent caught her nose. A woman. Someone still lived in this ruin.

She jumped forward and became as insubstantial as the mist around her. She pushed forward. Determined to find her. Through walls and floors she moved. At the center the church, Seras found her.

The four vampires were torturing her. Their threats tore through her shattered psyche. Their claws ripped into thin flesh, drawing slender lines of blood. Her quiet sobs echoed across the wide room.

The smell of terror burned her nose and roused her Hunger. It lie quiescent, unheeding the outside world. Until one of its joys woke it up. It writhed and twisted. Laced her mind with the anguish of its confinement. Demanded to be fed. She wobbled unsteadily, nearly tumbling into a wall for balance. Each time she promised, she swore she would never fall to Its depredations. And here she was again.

Seras seized control of herself, snatched a piece of wood and threw it to the far side of the room. She quickly faded into the shadows, raced to the woman. The clatter stole the four’s attention away. In that lone moment of carelessness Seras reached out and pulled the woman into her arms, took her into the void. The smell of blood and terror was overpowering, it took every once of her willpower to not devour the woman.

“Stay here”, Seras whispered as she brought the woman to the basement.

Seras launched herself through the darkness. She trembled with the effort to restrain herself. That obscene pulsating, so warm and comforting, had started. It had fully stirred from slumber. She couldn’t think. She gasped for breath she didn’t need, and tried to gather her thoughts. The vampires upstairs would know they were not alone. She’d have to neutralize a few, otherwise some of the men would be killed when they stormed the church.

She floated through the nothingness to the room. Already they hunted, thinking their victim had run off. With a thought Seras closed and sealed the doors. The tiny spark of fear lit her senses on fire. It was pleased. Their fright tasted better than the woman’s.

Fighting her instincts she drifted toward the closest one and pulled it into the darkness with her. He managed a small shriek before vanishing from this world. Seras ripped into its chest and destroyed him. Unwillingly she drank of his terror. The pulsating increased, spreading its heat over her body, thrilling her with dark comforts and horrid fantasies. She quivered with the effort to suppress herself.

She couldn’t fight It anymore. Maybe if she appeased it, just a little, it would go away. She turned back to the floor above. The three vampires were scrambling around, trying to figure out what had happened. She drifted towards the one farthest away. Reaching up she clawed his lower leg, drawing streams of blood, and withdrew before he could react. Their screams echoed in the room. They crashed about as they sought the intruder.

Seras’s body was burning hot, their fear was so perfect, so delicious. Just another small taste and I’ll stop, she promised herself. She watched the remaining three who still called out to their dead companion, fear flitting about them.

Unseen, she followed the injured one. She magnified the quiet noises of the night until his nerves were shredded. Then she attacked, ripping flesh and cracking bone. He fell screaming and twitching.

Seras hid beyond the light and feasted on the terror. The others stormed closer. With a thought she stole the dying vampire’s soul. She watched it wriggle and writhe, Need destroying her senses. Then she devoured it.

Ecstasy beyond anything she could ever dream of exploded throughout her. Terrible desires flooded her mind and drowned out all reason. Sensual horror engulfed her body. Her promise forgotten, she floated off to slaughter the last two.

They scrambled around trying to breach the doors, to batter down the walls. Seras gleefully crept into their brains, whispering of all the dark things set after them. Fear drained their strength and dulled their minds, and she fed of it. She waited while they battered themselves against fate. Abruptly, one broke off and dove into a corner. Lazily she moved to him, listened to it pray to an uncaring god.

She drank his terror, made its broken mind see things, things too terrible to be real, things that defied everything good and right, things that finally destroyed its sanity. She took it then, moved to the in-between so her thirsting desires could have all they wanted. Seras made it dance and twitch for her, its long slow death an epicurean pleasure. When its body was nothing more than a hollowed out husk and its soul dead she drifted back to the other one.

It stood in the center of the room, yelling its petty defiance. It wore despair as a death shroud. Its friend’s dying screams had driven hope from it. Slowly she rose above the floor, draped in gore and shrouded with blood. Seras let it see the monster coiled within her, the unending Hunger and Thirst. It whimpered and cowered before the nightmare. She opened her fanged mouth to drink deep of it.